The First Domino
by okh-eshivar
Summary: Amanda and Lara seek refuge within a cavern after the events of Underworld, and each of them undergo the process of fight and forgiveness. But not without a 20,000 bottle of scotch. Rating will most likely go up.
1. Chapter 1

_**A/N: More Lara/ Amanda, with a more focused point of view on Amanda. 3**_

_**Of course, neither of these lovely ladies belongs to me. **_

_**Also, multi-chapter this time! So…Fun! Stick around if you like!**_

"Let me see."

"Go to hell."

"Shut up and let me help you."

I yank my arm from your grasp violently, sending an electric shock of agony shooting down my left side. "I don't need your help!" I yelp mid sentence, stifling it between my teeth the best I could. I hate that you're watching me the way you are. You think I'm weak. Pathetic.

"Fine." You back away, hair whipping in your ponytail behind as the wind tossed it effortlessly. It's too cold. We're going to die out here.

"Have it your way." There is a frustrated burst of fire behind your eyes as you meet my gaze for a moment before you turn back around, blazing our blind trail. I smirk grimly at the motion. You hate me. I can feel it in those eyes. There is an irritating pang in my rib cage that I ignore. And I force anger into my throat. I won't let you win.

We walk. And walk. My ankle throbs rhythmically with my rapid heartbeat, my hip aches horribly. My feet hurt.

You're walking. Always walking. I want to tell you to slow down, but I know you won't listen. But everything hurts. It happens in an instant.

My ankle catches on something hiding beneath the snow, and razors slice up my nerves. I stumble, fall. The ground is frosted with padded shock. A yell burst from my seared throat as my battered hip connects with something hard.

I'm dead.

I'm dead.

You're not turning around. You won't. I close my eyes. Everywhere the snow touches burns horribly. I'm half gone when something strong yanks me upwards. Impossible.

It's you. Your arms are wrapping mine around your shoulder, holding my waist to your side. I fight. I hate you. And you hate me.

"Stop thrashing about." Your voice is dangerously low, stern. I thought I was following you. I thought you were waiting for me to drop. My body is begging for rest.  
"I found something. A place for us to sleep, rest. A recess in the cliff face that seems fairly deep."

"...Stop it. I don't-"

"Do yourself a favor and shut the hell up for five bloody seconds. I'm helping you. Deal with it." You snap. I feel rage boiling in the pit of my stomach.

"Let me be! I don't want your goddamn sympathy! Get off!"

You stop, and go quiet. I think I've won. But the hand at my wrist only tightens with unfeminine strength, and the hand at my waist grips the loop of my pants. Your voice is a growl when you finally speak again.

"You aided in the destruction of my home, thus enabling the total annihilation of thousands of priceless books, artworks, artifacts and relics I personally house. You aided in the cold blooded murder of one of the only human beings, friends, I have left in this world. You have made multiple attempts at my life, and you continuously mock and belittle the loss of both of my parents. Why the hell should I listen to or do one sodding thing you want?"

Frost bitten air caught in my throat as you laundry-list my personal crimes, and a heavy heaving invades my chest.

The cave is dark and wet, but it's better that freezing and deadly. I expect you to drop me as soon as your boot hits the rock.

But you don't. You lead me in deeper, where the air moved very little, and placed me gingerly against the wall, careful not to agitate my injuries. It's dark. I shiver into my crossed arms, stretching my wounded legs out against the tempered stone.

"God, this hurts so bad." I grit my jaw.

You chuckle, and I spark again. "What? You think this is funny?"

You kneel next to me, seemingly unfazed by my obvious hostility, and press a solid palm against my thigh. A slow burn cycles from my center to my face.

"Don't touch me." Don't touch me. I hate when you make me feel like this. Pathetic. You hate me.  
Stop playing games.

You ignore me, and it drives me insane. Your fingers begin working at the belts in the top of my heeled boot, and the zipper of its side. My ankle screams when you pull the tight leather from me, holding my foot in a cradling hand.

"There's some fairly severe swelling, irritation. Tell me if what I'm doing hurts."  
You roll it to one side, and I nearly jump out of my skin.

"A sprain, then. You need to resist moving it, alright? Here." You push your bag under my foot, elevating it, and remove two metal rods and a bundle of fabric from its mouth.

"What are you doing?" I meant to sound more sarcastic, but my curiosity Got the best of me. I had once admired that side of you. That craftiness. Now, it just made you seemingly impossible to kill.

The rods are ice walking sticks. You extend them to full length, and begin adjusting them to the length of my leg. After you are satisfied, you shake out the blue fabric bundle.

That shirt. You used to wear one just like it. With a single, deft twist of your wrist, you shred through the tight stitching.

"Hold these in place, please." I comply, if only for relief. You still hold that concentrated expression that you did when we were young, intense eyes and slightly furrowed brow. It brings a seizing wave of nostalgia.

The shirt is ripped four times across when I notice something about it that makes me laugh. The action nearly felt alien to me.

"What?"

"It's stretched out, near the top. You can tell exactly where your boobs were."

You smile loosely for a moment, look to the scraps, and begin to chuckle, covering your mouth with a flat palm. It becomes contagious, and I realize this is the first time in nearly six years that I've genuinely laughed.

It felt good. The fire within me cools. I remember teasing you about your generous chest nearly every day we worked together; you'd either get self conscious or pop me in the shoulder with a playful fist. It felt strange to recall such things. For the past decade they had been nothing but nightmarish reminders of your betrayal.

Betrayal. Molten rock surges back into my lungs, and every muscle in my body stiffens.

"Are you alright?" I can't answer you. A rock lodges itself in my throat. I turn my head away from you, hiding my eyes behind the fringe of my bangs, bite my lips together. You will not see this. I won't give that to you.

"Amanda..." Your voice is too soft. Stop it. I swear to God I will bury you. Stop it.

You touch my legs gently, coiling the first of the binds to the hinge of my knee. I let you work. If I open my mouth, something bad will happen.

The last bind nearly puts me over the edge. You tighten my ankle in place.

"It's the best I can do for now. We'll have to get you to a hospital when we get back to the mainland."  
I don't answer, and you seem content in it. A high beep echoes from your side. You pull some device from your pocket and hold it up, as if trying to get a signal.

"I'll be back. I'm going to try to hail a chopper."

"Good luck with that." I saturate my words with sarcasm and malevolence. I don't want you to get comfortable with me.

I hate you. I hate you. I repeat the phrase on a loop in my mind, and for a handful of moments at a time I believe it.

Part of me hopes that you disappear in the white out as you step from the cavern mouth, that the tempestuous winds sucks you into the sky and I never see you again. It was so much easier when I didn't have to look at you. When I wasn't reminded.

I hold the sides of my head between my hands, digging shallow trenches into my scalp with my fingernails, and swallow that thing in my throat. Go to hell. Pathetic. My eyes are wet. Pathetic.  
You're gone for a long time, long enough to question whether or not you'd come back. Panic becomes a dull, sizzling ache in my chest when I remind myself that you are faster and, in these moments of frustrating weakness, stronger than me. Perhaps you've left me to die, put me in a place where instead of freezing to death, I'd starve slowly. Perhaps my death would bring you happiness.  
My eyelids are heavy, and there's a nagging voice in my brain that's telling me I'm passing out. I don't resist.

I'm tired of this life.

"Amanda. Come on, you've slept long enough." my surroundings are blurred and spinning when I finally wake. The first thing to come into focus is your face, a foot from mine. At first I think I'm having a nightmare. A flashback. Then I remember.

I shake you off.

"Come on, you've got to move a bit. You've been asleep a good while." I sit up straighter, and my joints crackle under the ache of stasis.

"How long was I out?"

"About six hours." Six hours? Christ. The last few days had taken everything out of me; I hadn't slept, or eaten, in some time.

I look to the blind outside. Pitch black, though the sound of the angry wind still echoed off the cavern walls. Between us now stood a healthy fire, perched atop a pile of warped lumber. The warmth was more than welcoming. I wrap my fingers about the stone dangling from my neck, a nervous habit I developed years back. I half expected it to be gone.

"Why didn't you wake me up when you got back?" I didn't like the idea of you trodding around my unconscious body. Maybe there was a boot print on my throat already.

"You looked like you needed the rest." You pause, and quirk an eyebrow at me. "I was hoping it would make you better company, seeing as we're going to be here a while."

I scoff half heartedly. "And just how long is that?"

You lean into the flame to comb the ashes with a branch, stirring a cloud of glimmering haze into the empty space above us. I watch it disappear into the vast abyss.

"I couldn't get a signal. Our best hope is to keep here until the storm settles, then head north. Hopefully we'll cross over the ruins again, where I know I can hail Zip."

"So, let me get this straight. Our choices are, die here, die in the ruins, or die in the snow."

"If that's how you prefer to look at it, fine. But I, for one, am not planning on dying."

"Yeah, I've noticed." I stare into the flame, and the image of my power dances vaguely within it. The stone is cold. Something is keeping it from waking. Vulnerability.

"Where did you get the wood?"

You look at me with a spark, as if surprised to hear me say something lacking that smug inflection I know you dislike. For some reason, the implication embarrasses me into an awkward stupor.

"Nevermind. I don't care."

"I went back south. There was an old mining site, buried in the snow. I figured it wouldn't hurt to take one of the fuel carts. I broke it apart and used the residual oil from the peering lamps to maintain the burn, since the wood was a bit soggy." You have a small smile on your lips as you talk. It doesn't anger me as I expect it to. Instead, I feel my shoulders relax into the wall behind me.

That mine was miles in the opposite direction.

"You could have reached the hail site within that kind of distance. Why didn't you just go there?"

"The signal has to be maintained at a certain spot for a set period of time before help can be reached. Had I went, you would have frozen to death."

"So I'm a burden now, is that it?"

"Oh, hush." Your tone confuses me. There is no anger in your voice. Mild frustration maybe, but not anger. "I know you aren't used to being aided, but at least attempt some beginner's grace."

"My beginner's grace was crushed in Paraiso," I growl. "When I called for help, and no one came."

You go quiet, smile wilting into a small line. My lungs constrict, and the pleasure I thought I would get from seeing your face twisted in pain never comes.

"I wish you could have seen the weeks that had passed after you disappeared, Amanda." The statement is odd to my ears, and a twinge in my chest begs you to continue. "Do you honestly think I just turned my back on you after the cave in? Everyone was telling me you were gone. I dove in that tunnel so many times, searching, they thought I was going to kill myself. Anaya had to isolate me just so I couldn't risk my life again."

I feel my eyebrows knit together in disbelief. "You're lying to me. Right to my face," I spit. My stomach curls into a tight knot. "You never came looking for me."

"How could you possibly say that?" There is a pain in your expression that I had never seen from you before. Something's wrong. You shouldn't be reacting like this.

You hate me.

"I nearly caused another collapse trying the pry the cage open! I didn't eat or sleep, or rest for weeks afterward! I had to be evac-ed back to the University because they thought I had become an additional liability!" You stand, nearly kicking over the structure of the fire, and charge me, pinning my legs between yours and grabbing the collar of my leather jacket, shaking me roughly. I see the intimidating flicker of instability behind the sudden rage in your face. I flinch to the side, expecting a strike. This isn't right. She told me you left. You hardly even tried to find my body. That you had forgotten me.

"She told me…you forgot about me…" I stutter, and suddenly I realize a frustrating, heart rending truth. That witch.

"And you believed her."

That fucking witch.

Your teeth show through your bee-stung lips as you grit down, holding something in. "Amanda…I still have nightmares about that day. I still wake up screaming and sweating." Your voice is dangerously low again. You're shaking furiously, the blood in your face is slowly rising, skin deep.

Your head lolls forward as your grip becomes lax. I could brush your weight off of me easily, but I don't. This isn't what it's supposed to be. This isn't what I had prepared for, what I was expecting. I don't understand.

"You…can never comprehend the sheer level of loss, and pain, that I have endured in the last ten years. And you…you were that first domino. You disappeared, and everything went to shit. It was you, then father, then Professor Von Croy, Winston, Shaun Carver, Jessica, Trent, Carvier, a laundry list of others, all somehow leading up to Natla returning from the fucking dead, creating a damn clone of me, murdering Alister, shooting Zip, burning my house and all of the memories I had left of my parents to the fucking ground, and somehow managing to find and ally up with my dead best friend to plot my death." You take a long, shaky breath, as if it's the first time even you have added up all of the loss in your life.

I look down at my splinted leg. Even in your rage you avoided knocking it around. It's all blurry now. Two hours ago everything made sense, everything was right. Wrong. Everything was wrong, but it made sense. It all fit together. Now, it's falling apart. The pieces, something is stealing all of the pieces again. The picture doesn't fit like it should anymore. It was an ugly, grotesque picture, but at least it was something! Now it's nothing. Just a mess of shredded sense.

You inhale loudly through your nose, exhale through your lips, and stand over me, anger still evident, etching lines into your forehead. I don't know what to say. A brand of nausea invades my senses. Shame. Weakness. I let her control me, like a goddamn puppet. I bite my lower lip, divert my gaze. Your expression softens somewhat when I don't argue, or snap, and you step back, pacing.

"Fucking hell," you snarl quietly, running your palms from your eyes to the back of your head. "At least this can't get much worse." Your fingers tangle around your ponytail to tighten it, and your tie snaps, weakened from the cold. Waist long brown hair tumbles into your back. The expression on your face is a mixture of shock and disbelief.

I put in a real effort to holding in my laugh, but I end up just sputtering into my fingers. I only heave harder when you throw your arms up, let out a frustrated yell, and spit a string of very British swears into the darkness. Defeated, you sit on your heels heavily beside me with your face buried in your crossed arms, which rest on your knees. You are still murmuring to yourself; I watch you with too much emotion as your hair falls around your shoulders and chest.

Counted minutes pass before I finally come to terms with the words that hung on my tongue. "…Are you…okay?" It feels cheap, after your previous deposition. I suddenly want to reach out and touch you, but I don't. Laughing helps me recover from my shock, but your silence is disheartening.

You sigh deeply and toss your hair out of your face with a deft hand. I hardly remember the last time I saw you with your hair down. I never understood why you grew it out so long, but there was always something oddly comforting in the way it used to curtain around me when we shared a sleeping bag. Those cool nights on dig sites.

Shit. I banish the thoughts. I don't want to think about what we used to be. What I used to be.

What you used to be.

"I'm…what am I…" Your gaze remains tethered to the ground as you speak. "I'm tired. I'm lost. And it seems that the only thing that I have left of my past…" You look up at me, and our eyes lock. "…Is you."

The words should have been laced with barbed wire and hatred. But they aren't. You sound like you're drowning.

I hug my uninjured leg close to my torso as you look away, into the fire. You smile twistedly, eyes hidden by the fringe of your hair. Orange light dances off your features, contouring. You look tired.

"You should get some sleep, or something…" My voice is smaller than I'm used to. I feel small. Somehow even smaller than under the eyes of your enigmatic clone. I could control her with no more than two words. I hope you never learn what happened between us in the last four years. I would sooner throw myself into the fire than reveal my damage to you.

You don't answer. Instead, you lean towards me, pulling the zipper to the bag under my leg open and pulling from it a full bottle of what looked like either whiskey, or scotch.

"Or something."


	2. Intoxication

The scotch burns warmly in my throat, and I feel rose rise to my cheeks. Beside me, you snicker, covering your lips with sprawling fingers and reaching to snatch the bottle from me. I yank it away as you come within an inch of it, causing you to fall over onto my lap. I laugh, planting an open palm over the side of your head as you struggle towards the liquor again.

"Come off it, you wanker. Give it here." You nearly slur, but seem to be just lucid enough to maintain your speech. I realize you become exceptionally more 'British' when tipsy, and this makes me want to aggravate you a bit more.

"Don't you want to be at least a little sober when Natla rises from the dead again?" I feel myself grin somewhat wickedly when your face twists into a grimace at the mention of the god-queen.

"If I ever see that manky bint again, I will literally go blind. You know she wanted me to be her 'queen'? That Billy No-Mates, daughter of some Atlantian scrubber trying to pass herself for some all mighty being. Just some barmy git trying to filch what I had already claimed." You ramble on in my lap, accentuating your words with vague hand gestures. I laugh. I honestly can't understand what you're saying, but the conviction in your words is enough to send humor bubbling out from my throat.

I bring the bottle a bit closer, and you snatch it easily. You sit up on your elbow, take a quick swig, and choose to rest your head back onto my upper thigh. The proximity would have unsettled me if not for the quarter bottle of Dalvern 69 in my food deprived stomach. Your long hair spills over my leg, lacing me with a spider web of strands.

You turn over suddenly, as if struck with an epiphany. "The Scion! Have you heard of it, Amanda? Oh, how I thought of you when I experienced its power..." The smile on your face reminds me of how beautiful I used to think you were. You're still beautiful. I must be really drunk. That detached, distant look in your mystique has lifted, and suddenly you are who you used to be.

"You thought of me?" I chuckle awkwardly as my face becomes hot. I feel like I'm back in University.

"I think of you a lot," you say matter-of-factly, leaning on my thigh with crossed arms and staring deeply into the mouth of the scotch bottle. My eyes widen at your confession, my mouth parts slightly in curious shock. You think about me? A lot?

"Do you recall…" You begin, pause, swig, and begin again. "Do you recall our debates back in University, when I would fervently defend a singular plane of religious existence? Such an atheistic arse I was sometimes. But you were such a good rebuttal, you know. I loved it. You could defend yourself, the rituals and rites you studied were always up there, you gather. You believed in that sector of archeology that everyone was always dodgy about. The spiritual energy, the curses, the…the magic."

I take the bottle from you, mentally examining the print of your lips on the mouth and tip it back. For a split second, I can taste you. It feels dangerous, in a confusing, exciting way.

"Yeah," I say, wiping my lips with the back of my hand. "Course I remember. You were the only one in the whole damn program that I really got along with. You listened, and rebuttaled, but you never got short with me, our debates never turned into pointless arguments." I chuckle fondly at the memory, now less of a nightmare than before.

"We were such recluses, we were. We'd spend party nights huddled together in the dorm, picking new topics to discuss and complaining when the music grew too loud."

"Scanning the books you'd steal from the library for new information supporting our theories…Everyone thought we were wound so tight, but we'd spend hours laughing and fooling around in our own company…" I smile in a way that feels…odd and wonderful and real.

You flip onto your back, and stare up at me with eyes not so clouded with anger and knotted with distance. And you sigh.

Your hand rises, slow with hesitation, and drags a lazy caress against my left cheek. I nearly jump at the action, the implication. A digit traces over the scar you carved there with a bullet less than a week ago.

"…You wanted me dead because I killed that bloke you fancied. But you know, Amanda…I've killed a lot of people…" My brow furrows at this sudden change, and I wince at the mention of James.

"H-How much is 'a lot'?" I'm intrigued for some reason; the tone of your voice is strangely alluring.

You smile gently, avert your gaze from mine to the scar under your thumb. "Twenty eight." I feel myself reel back slightly. "Just to get to you." You laugh grimly. "I must have cost you a pretty penny. Mercenaries aren't exactly cheap these days, are they?"

I'm almost afraid to ask my next question. "…How many total?"

You close your eyes; your hand falls limply to rest on your abdomen.

"…Eighty three men. Two women. Four people I considered friends. Two I considered more than friends. Six guides. Three aids. And one…Goddess." You press your hand over your eyes, digging your fingernails into your fair skin. Lips quiver.

"I am…forever…without salvation. Peace. Rest. It's what I deserve, isn't it?"

Your hand wanders to the weapon at your side, twitching about the safety knob at its rear. It remains there tentatively, and then travels to the hem of your jacket, fooling with the opening latches. Heat is spreading over my face again.

"What are you doing?"

You rise to your knees. You're incredibly close when you begin undoing the front of your jacket. "I want to show you something, Amanda. Something you ought to see. Something you might enjoy."

My eyes go wide as the heavy fabric falls from your built shoulder blades and your digits play at the zipper of your wetsuit, pulling it low beneath your collarbone, bust, and stopping short beneath the soft line of your navel. The stiffness of the cloth keeps it fairly shut, until you begin…pulling it open…

"S-Stop! What the hell are you-" Panic invades me suddenly. You always got weird when you were drunk. It's why you didn't drink. A twinge pulls in my abdomen as the valley between your generous breasts becomes visible. I can't do this.

"Oh, stop being such a bloody prude. I'm not going to shag you, for chrissakes. Just look." Look? I bring my gaze back to you, scanning. Soaking in. I run my eyes over your exposed flesh, and I see what you meant to show.

Skin, punctuated and dashed with a wide array of scars, a mess of new wounds and old wounds. Your torso is adorned with evidence of knife slices, gunshots, claw marks and small groupings of seemingly permanent hematomas.

You touch yourself at just above your navel, tracing the mark of a gunshot burn that hadn't healed as well as you would have liked. The delicate lines of lean muscle only accentuate the damage done to you.

"I have suffered, yeah? I have met with Death many times. It follows me now, like a lapdog, waiting for me to make a mistake. So if you can't have my death to celebrate, perhaps you can celebrate all of the times I wished I would have died." Your smile is far too sweet for this grotesque display. A brightening dawns on your face as you begin elaborating on each mark.

"This one, bastard punched a hole right through my stomach. Left me in the desert for dead. You want someone to die a painfully, agonizingly slow death, you shoot them in the stomach. It's a matter of hemorrhage, after that. It feels…like every muscle in your body is twisted and tearing into that wound."

You smile lopsidedly. The alcohol is rich on your breath, your cheeks are red with intoxication. "This…a knife, buried five inches. Sliced cleanly through. He tried to have his way with me after that. He was ripping open my blouse when his skull exploded." I recoil into the stone behind me as you lean in closer, eyes half lidded. Fingers wander to the lowest scar I visible, inches below your navel. A long, knarled jag.

"This one…you'll like this." You chuckle grimly. "Four inches deep and pulled to the left. He was hired by a certain someone with platinum blonde hair and madly long legs. Maybe you know of her…"

My brain is fogged, but I can easily make the connection to myself. But that's impossible. I specifically instructed those thugs not you kill you. I wanted that for myself. I make a small sound, unable to tear my eyes from the mark, scotch flowing like scorching Eitr in my veins. Fingers caress the side of my face, both of your hands cradling gently. Confusion. You bite your lower lip, holding something in weakly, and rest your forehead against mine.

Close. So close. Lips tremble, and I'm not sure if they're yours or mine.

"He took something from me, Amanda…" You whisper breathily, hands shaking, and take my wrist gingerly. It comes to rest over the scar, pressed to soft and matted flesh, dangerously low on your body. There. My eyes widen.

"You didn't kill me Amanda, but at least you will never have to bother with my child."

Child? No. "You…were…?"

You chuckle, still so close. "Of course not, silly. That would be mad! But I could have been. Some day. Perhaps. Probably not, but it was quite nice to have the option." Your hand comes back to my face, stroking my now minute scar, then wanders lower.

"He was laughing, Amanda. Like a mad-man. Like he knew exactly what he just did. Like you told him to enjoy it."

"No," I mutter. The words are automatic. No. Please. "I wouldn't-"

"I know," you interrupt. "I know, love. I know you wouldn't. You're not a monster. Natla perhaps would, but not you." You brush your lips against my forehead so softly that for a moment I think I'm dreaming. "Not you…"

The hand at my clavicle slides between my breasts, and my breath hitches visibly. "S-Stop it, you're drunk."

"I am. And it's wonderful," you smile, rear back on your knees and hum quietly, straddling me still. A pinch of aching muscle between my legs teases me with frightening possibilities. I want to touch you. I must be drunk too. It was a fine excuse.

I lean into you, reach out and rest anxious hands on your waist, nervous. I want this. You sigh languorously into the touch, causing the heat in my chest to burst with vampent fury.

"Amanda…" Your voice is saturated with sultry desire as your hand clasps my breast, squeezing lightly, and the other pulls at the back of my neck. This is happening. Was it? A dream, that's it.

Okay…I let you lead me, pressing my chin upwards with a bent thumb and index finger. Your eyes are swimming as I draw the digit into my mouth, stroking this length with my tongue. It's chilled, and tastes of leather and ice.

"Amanda…" My name has never sounded so perfect, drenched in longing, in aching hunger. Your lips ghost against mine in a slow drag, a beckon. A begging. I push into you deeply, tipping my chin to sink my tongue into your mouth. A deep whimper vibrates between us. My hands are quivering against your heated flesh, exploring what I never thought I would get to touch. My teeth take hold of your bottom lip, and suddenly you pull away, twisted smile playing across your cheeks.

"You get me so gutted sometimes," you say, stroking the stone around my throat. "This thing…Alister died so you could have it. Died. That's such a gentle sounding word, isn't it? Murdered. Maimed. Slaughtered. Those aren't so pretty, are they?" Your tone is too soft. "He was a good mate. Bookish. He reminded me of you, sometimes."

Turmoil erupts in my stomach. Confusion. Pain, mixing with the alcohol, mixing with the alien guilt pouring into my chest. You pick yourself from me, collapsing into the wall with a heave. "Listen to me! Quite the hypocrite tonight, aren't I?" Hands held spread in your lap, you stare vacantly into your palms for some time before speaking again. "I've done horrid things, Amanda. Things that would make your skin crawl, your insides turn."

Things. Part of me wants to punch you square in the jaw for pulling away. For mentioning James. For making me suffer this guilt, and regret. The other wants to hold you, like back then, when you'd have night terrors regarding your dead mother, your recently deceased father, your disowning family. The curse that followed you.

You look terribly sad. I lean an inch closer.

"I've done bad things, too, you know. I'm not the same person I used to be. I'm not a weak little girl anymore." My tone is more defensive than I intended. With a low chuckle, you close your hands into tight fists and let your eyelids fall, leaning back into the stone.

"You're possessed," you whisper. "And so am I."

A memory of your doppelganger invades me for the flash of a moment. Golden eyes and enigmatic smile. It was wholly frustrating how completely unreadable it was, how unpredictable, unless under the compulsion of myself or Natla. The God-Queen stated often-

_There is too much Lara in you for your own good._

The one raw truth she had uttered in their shared time. Too much cancerous DNA. Too much venom. Too much strength. It was her ultimate unraveling when Lara had set it free.

It's all over now. The world I once knew is collapsing all around me. And the only thing familiar left is you.

Natla would call this 'delicious irony'. And she'd be right.

"We're both fucked up, aren't we?" I look deeply into the splint around my numbed leg with a needled smile.

"Thoroughly," you reply with a huff, as if it's the first time you've admitted it. "Buggered up to Hell and back." Your head finds my shoulder, and the bottle finds your lips again. There's only a quarter left when you examine the label with delicacy, running an index finger over the embossed words.

"This bottle costed 32,000 pounds. That's 20,000 American dollars. I was saving it for a special occasion, maybe a victory drink with Zip on my arrival back. But he isn't here."

"What? Do you have a thing for him or something?" The inquiry is bitter on my tongue.

"Zip? God, _no._ We're…", you pause inexplicably, searching for the right word. "Well, I call us mates. He calls us _bros. _So American of him, isn't it? But I sort of like 'bros', more than 'mates'. You can't bungle the terms 'bros' to mean something else. Mates can mean a lot of things."

Again, I am surprised that your proximity doesn't bother me. Your rambling nearly makes me laugh, but I hold it back long enough to take another swig, grabbing the bottle. Your hands are still on it when it reaches my mouth. Emotions are a cloud of energy now, and the rapid, drastic peaks and valleys of this conversation are only evidence of it.

"Bros, huh? So, like, close friends?"

You nod. I notice your wetsuit torso is slowly becoming spread at the zipper again, and to avoid an awkward slip, I reach for the loop below your navel to pull it up for you. The movement my upper body makes to turn at my waist causes your resting head roll from my shoulder to my chest, your forehead pressed into the rise of my clavicle. With an embarrassed grasp, I hurriedly pull the zipper head up your abdomen, set on covering you up to your neck, but my grip snaps when the line approaches your breasts. I try again, but only manage to push your cleavage up, the material too inflexible to make the trek over.

"Oh, hang on there." You take the spot over my hand, closing around the small metal piece, and roughly yank it up, covering yourself. "Can't be gentle with them," you smile wickedly as the syllables curve into your lips.

I avert my gaze with substantial heat on my face. "…You're such a weird drunk…" I mumble.

"Your heart is beating too quick."

A prickle of burn assaults my cheeks. With sloppy motion, I push you off my chest. "T-That's none of your business."

"Are you alright? Should I call an ambulance?" You're beginning to slur now. The notion wouldn't have been as funny if you weren't dead serious.

"Sure, maybe you should call in a pizza while you're at it."

"Maybe- Wait! Listen." You sit up straight with a hand cupping your left ear, gone completely silent.

"What?"

"Don't you hear that?" Silence again. I find myself straining to hear whatever it is that's caught your attention. What meets my ears is only the incessant drone of the whipping gust outside.

"What? The wind?"

"No, listen. It's…It's…" You pull me in close suddenly with a flat hand at the back of my head, pressing your cheek to mine, mouth at my earlobe. "…the heartbeat of the world…"

You go limp suddenly, asleep_. _You really shouldn't drink. Your body presses into mine, dead weight, and I struggle for a moment to get you into a position a little less crushing. I settle for sliding you to my side, a leg still stretched over my thigh, head resting at the crook of my shoulder and neck, hand placed over my abdomen. With numb caution, I wrap an arm around your shoulder blades for support, and lean my cheek on the top of your head.

And suddenly, sleep is chewing uncomfortably at the corners of my eyes as well. I look to the mouth of the cave. Nothing has changed.

Everything has changed.

I silently hope morning never comes.


End file.
